This invention relates to energy and thermodynamic systems, and more particularly relates to componentry for enabling power sources, such as electric power sources, propulsion drives for, e.g., jet propulsion, and thermodynamic systems, such as cooling and ventilation systems, all that operate in high-efficiency and small-size regimes.
Compact, highly mobile, and efficient thermodynamic and energy systems are becoming increasingly important for a wide range of applications, such as powering and cooling of portable electronics, communications, and medical devices, control and modular propulsion of distributed and self-powered actuation and sensor systems, and thermodynamic cycling of distributed and/or auxiliary heating and ventilation systems, as well as many other applications. Typically, such applications optimally require power sources that are characterized by high power and energy density but minimal size and weight, and that are cost effective.
Historically, batteries, such as primary and rechargeable batteries, have been relied on for supplying portable, compact sources of power. Portable batteries are generally limited, however, to power production in the range of milliwatt to watts, and thus cannot conventionally address the need for significant as well as mobile and lightweight power production. The environmental incompatibility of typical batteries also poses a limitation for many applications.
Conversely, heat engines, such as gas turbine powered generators, can produce kilowatts of power at high power densities and efficiencies, but are typically of relatively large sizes that are not compatible with the high mobility requirement of many self-powered applications. Indeed, although the inherent high energy density of liquid fuels makes heat engines the most compact of all power sources, thermodynamic scaling and cost considerations have traditionally favored large size engines. Specifically, large engines, such as gas turbine engines, rely on high combustor exit temperatures and precise dimensional control to achieve high combustion and component efficiency; the cost and difficulty in achieving high component machine tolerances and accommodating high combustor temperatures in relatively smaller sized conventional engines have made the gas turbine a less attractive power source for power levels less than hundreds of kilowatts.
Beyond the dichotomy of power sources characterized by high power and energy density and those characterized by high mobility and low weight, systems for propulsion, circulation, heating, cooling, and other thermodynamic cycles are found to similarly be typically lacking in one or more requirements for efficiency, modularity, mobility, size, weight, or cost effectiveness that are characteristic of aggressive modem applications. Yet many aggressive portable and modular applications rely on the availability of both power and thermodynamic cycle sources that comply with such requirements. As a result, advances in mobile, self-powered, and small-scale systems have heretofore been limited.